Time to decorate for Easter

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published 12:00 am, Sunday, April 2, 2006

I'm only just barely undecorated from Christmas - I think there are still a red candle and some reindeer in the living room and I know there's a poinsettia in the kitchen - and here it is time to decorate for Easter.

I'm not sure just when all this happened, this Easter decorating business. When I was a kid I think my mother bought a hyacinth plant at some point, and that was it. I don't remember any special décor. We certainly didn't have a bathmat with rabbits on it or anything.

It all begins outside. If Easter comes early in the year, it might look a bit premature decking the lawn in eggs and rabbits amid icicles and snow. But if Easter is late, as it is this year, you have a chance of daffodils being in bloom for natural enhancement.

I think the first evidence of exterior Easter decorating I ever saw was plastic eggs hanging on trees in people's front yards. I always thought that was kind of neat, a colorful introduction to spring.

Then there were Easter wreaths appearing on front doors, which I got into big time. (I'm very fond of round decorative things, being something of one myself.)

Nowadays you can plant stakes and windspinners bearing all kinds of Easter greetings and ornamentation. There are endless banners, flags and windsocks to choose from. And don't forget wind chimes - there's a cute tin chick one on eBay for a mere $6.99 (plus shipping).

People go all-out at Christmas with exterior lighting, so why hold back at Easter? You could opt to outline the entire house in strings of colorful egg lights, or merely line your front walkway with big electric eggs.

Or you might go for a more understated lighted rabbit face on the front of the house, or the two-foot plastic illuminated bunny with a duckie painted on its stomach posed winningly by a bush.

If you have a porch railing, there is polyester bunny bunting available to drape on it. Or Easter floral garlands. Or both. Add plastic porch ducks or geese in their Easter bonnets, maybe some glittery flex wire, a seasonal doormat (who wants to step on a bunny?) and you have a porch to die for.

If you really want porch elegance, there is in the Sincerely Yours catalog a four-foot twig and moss rabbit holding a pot of flowers. I think it's perfectly hideous, but it costs $199, so it must be very nice indeed and I'm just missing something.

Aside from little eggs on trees (you can also put rabbit facial features on the trunk), you might highlight your yard with 14-inch plastic eggs scattered about. (I don't want to contemplate what might hatch out of those.)

Then, of course, we have the ever-popular inflatables - eggs, pastel rabbits, bunny in a racecar, hatching chicken, Easter Scooby Doo, Snoopy, and Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore, to name just a few.

Inside your home you can simply wallow in Easter decor, beginning with more of the stuff you put outside, except maybe the 8-foot inflatable things.

I like a wreath on the inside of our front door, and while I'm not really into Easter illumination, an attractive garland or two here and there might not be amiss.

I know a lot of people have Christmas china, but I don't personally know anyone who has Easter china. I don't think there is any. Yet. Some company will think of it; meanwhile, there's always paper dinnerware.

But there are thousands of Easter candy dishes, which seems kind of silly to me. Everybody knows Easter candy is kept in Easter baskets.

There may not be dishes (yet), but there are many table accessories for your Easter dining pleasure, such as all kinds of holiday linens, napkin rings, candles (how can you set fire to a baby chick?) and little glass individual salt dishes shaped like bunnies or lambs.

Table centerpieces range from simple arrangements of animals, to things floral, to Easter baskets and trees made of assorted materials and decorated to one's taste. I saw a glass vase full of jellybeans studded with silk flowers that was rather appealing.

If you're really into all this, you'll probably want a bunny tissue box cover, which you might cross stitch yourself if you're so inspired. And appropriate planters, shower curtains, and the duck family doorstop I saw in a catalog.

You can hang Easter artwork, if you care to replace your Renoir with a painting of rabbits cavorting amid daffodils.

You'll have fake bunny ears to put on the children or the dog. (No longer having either in residence, I put mine on the stone lion sitting by our front door.)

You can get bunny pancake molds to serve the perfect Easter breakfast. And there will be assorted Easter animals peeking from every corner and tabletop. You're never too old for a good Easter Bunny.